Sophia Al-Maria is presenting solo exhibition, Black Friday at New York’s Whitney Museum, opening July 26 and running October 31.
For nearly a decade, the London-based artist-writer has been finding ways to describe 21st century life in the Gulf Arab nations through art, writing, and filmmaking. She edited the recent Book Works issue, ‘Fresh Hell‘, which focussed on oil as a metaphor for historical, cultural and industrial amnesia, and coined the term ‘Gulf Futurism’ to explain the stunning urban and economic development in the region over the last decades.
Sharing its title with the exhibition, Al-Maria’s first solo in the US, her new film, ‘Black Friday’ continues this examination by focusing on the Gulf’s embrace of the shopping mall, which is described by the press release as “a weirdly neutral shared zone between cultures that are otherwise engaged in a sort of war of information and image”. The film will be accompanied in the space by an installation.
See the Whitney Museum website website for details.**
